The (Almost) Crackpot Theory House
by MormonStereotype
Summary: This is for theories that SEEM like crackpots at first glance, but upon closer inspection, actually make a lot of sense. From small loans of a million dollars to staged sitcoms, we're gonna cover them all. Send yours through PM or review! Please read and review! (Also, apparently removing a joke chapter counts as updating the story on FFN.)
1. Small Loan of a Million Dollars

Hi, guys! Welcome to the (almost) crackpot theory house! This first theory is my own, so here goes:

THEORY: The Poverty House

Alright, so let's address the elephant in the room here. The Loud family has 13 people. THIRTEEN PEOPLE. According to ASPE 2017 poverty guidelines, poverty line for a family of 13 is $62,220 annually. So let's assume Rita and Lynn Sr. both work 40-hour weeks and work 48 weeks per year. Their combined hourly wage would need to be $32.41. Now, let's assume Rita, as an assistant dentist, makes the average wage of her profession. In 2010, that was $16/hour. It's actually decreased to $15.45 since then, but we're using the higher number for the sake of argument. Lynn Sr. needs to earn at least $16.41/hour in order for the family to be BARELY above the poverty line (by literally $7.20 annually). Now, in Job Insecurity, he works as a dishwasher. Assuming he makes minimum wage, which is $8.15/hour in Michigan, the annual earnings of this family come to $46,368. THAT'S $15,852 SHORT OF THE POVERTY LINE. The difference alone is almost as much as the poverty line for a family of 2, and the amount they DO earn barely surpasses the poverty line for a family of 9. That's 4 people they can't afford to provide for! So that begs the question: how are the Louds doing as well as they are if they clearly aren't? Well, I have an idea. The source of this idea is Lisa. Specifically, her Nobel prize.

Now, when someone earns a Nobel Prize, it's not just a piece of metal decorated with the face of the inventor of dynamite that they receive; they also get a large amount of money. In 2009, that amount was the equivalent of $1,400,000. Assuming this is how much Lisa got, living at double poverty standards annually would still let that last for just more than 11 years. This may be another reason Lisa pays the bills; it's HER money keeping the family ALIVE. If I had to guess, the family WAS impoverished until Lisa, refusing to be content with the situation, invested herself into accomplishing something worthy of enough cash for her family to survive, and she did it.

Anyway, that's just an (almost) crackpot theory. Remember to send yours through PM or review!


	2. IT'S ON A SPECTRUM!

Hello, everyone! Today we'll be talking about AUTISM!

Theory 2: Julia sometimes does things differently...

So, we're going from a small loan to an epidemic (gotta love trump jokes). Now, being autistic myself, I have seen this theory floating around and just wanted to give my two cents on it. So, the theory goes that Lisa and Leni are on opposite ends of the autism spectrum. Now, let's first address some claims AGAINST this theory.

"Autism makes it harder to socialize! Lisa is probably autistic, I'll give you that, but Leni socializes like a pro! There's NO WAY she has autism!"

Alright, we have a hard time with empathy sometimes, yes, but those of us on the asperger's side of the spectrum are actually fairly decent at socializing if I do say so myself.

"Autistic people are GENIUSES, not MORONS!"

Again, autism is on a spectrum. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed some days myself. Not all of us are savants. (In fact, only 1 in 10 of us are.)

"She was written to be a ditsy blonde, nothing more!"

Okay...? This is almost a non-argument because there are two holes in it: 1) maybe it's meant to be revealed later, and 2) writers can change that sort of thing. When J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, I doubt Dumbledore was gay but, 12 years later, out he came. Now, I'm not comparing autism to homosexuality, I'm saying that writers can make small changes to characters or announce new things about them. But let's talk about the arguments FOR this.

Leni could easily fall on the asperger's end of the autism spectrum. She's proficient in some fields (fashion design and carpentry mostly), while also good at socializing but not always seeing how her actions affect others. Also, this is one argument that I think I might be the first to make: **Leni on car rides.**

Now, I'm not aware if anyone's pointed this out, but Leni seems to not do well on car rides. And neither do I sometimes. And this is actually a HUGE nail in the coffin, because it could be caused by one of the most well-known attributes of autism: Sensory issues. Think about it: 12 noisy family members, everything whizzing by in a blur, the smells made by aforementioned family and food, can all add up. In people with autism especially, this much sensory input can cause what people in the autism community call "Sensory Overload." It is usually characterized by headaches or migraines in later years, or meltdowns in earlier ones, the former of which we can assume is what's happening with Leni based on how she looks in the episode "The Sweet Spot." It's SO OVERLOOKED! The second I saw this I was like "yup, that's me- hang on..."

So Lisa and Leni could both very easily be autistic, with Leni more on the asperger's side of the spectrum and Lisa more on the other.

But hey, that's (almost) a crackpot theory. Send me some more theories through PM or review!


	3. Send New theories

Hi everyone!

I've basically run out of my own theories, so I need your help! You can send me new (almost) crackpot theories through PM or review in order to keep this going!

Thanks for taking the time to read this!


	4. TRIGGERED (& Adoption)

So, I recently decided I'd already lost enough of my will to live, so I figured I might as well read "Kidnapped" by rctperson85. The first few chapters are kinda what you'd expect; the absolute darkest of T-rated fics. But upon stumbling into the last 1/8th of chapter 5, a very interesting bit of lore was presented that I simply HAD to make a chapter on. rctperson85, you are a mad genius.

THEORY 3: **TRIGGERED**

So, if you haven't read the story, the gist of the part I'm talking about is this:

An infant Leni is a victim of a car accident, and is the only survivor. The accident induced trauma that impaired her depth perception and motor skills, and the Loud parents adopted her as a second child.

So at first, I figured that this fan lore was just that: fan lore. There's no way it could be true. But then I thought about it, and it does definitely explain some things, such as her walking into walls and not being able to walk while chewing bubble gum, the latter of which may be the result of both. Of course, being the left-brained individual I am, I came up with a counter. Again, it's car rides that decide this.

See, if Leni knows full well (according to the lore, Leni and Lori know exactly what happened) that she got into a really bad car accident that killed her biological parents, why doesn't she freak out at least a little when she rides in the car?

Of course, there are two holes in my counter:

1\. Not everyone who goes through something like that is traumatized, especially being as young as Leni.

2\. Maybe she is.

See, I did a quick google search and found that both anxiety AND panic attacks can cause lightheadedness and dizziness. And what do we see in "The Sweet Spot?"

A visibly lightheaded Leni.

But hey, that's (almost) a crack theory.


End file.
